Your Magic or Mine? (17 page)

“Do you always drive that fast?” he asked. He wasn’t sure if he was angry or astounded as he stared at her across the roof of the convertible.

“Fast? That wasn’t fast. I barely hit fifty. Besides, the sooner we were away from that riot in the living room, the better.” She gave him a mischievous grin before waving at the building in front of them. “Well, what do you think?”

He faced it and looked up … and up. From the ground to a peaked roof it stood at least three stories high. The bottom third of the glass structure was tinted a light smoky brown, and he couldn’t really see inside. Leafy branches pressed against the upper panes like they were trying to escape. “What is it? A greenhouse on steroids?”

About to unlock the door, she glanced back at him. Her green eyes sparkled, and she chuckled. “I never thought of it like that. Come in and see for yourself.”

She turned the key, but before opening the door, she shook her finger at the dogs who had followed them from the car. “Okay, you two, remember, no chewing on the plants.”

“Are the plants poisonous in there?” he asked, suddenly apprehensive.

“I don’t use herbicides or pesticides, and some of the plants are mildly toxic or have a few thorns. Delilah comes in all the time, and she leaves them alone. If Samson was a puppy, I wouldn’t let him in. Otherwise, I don’t want my specimens to have teeth marks. It really will be all right.” She walked into a small vestibule between the outer door and an inner one. When he had closed the first door, she led the way through the second.

He followed her into a world with heavy, humid air smelling of earth and faint floral fragrances, with multiple shades of green punctuated by spots of red or pink or white or purple, with large and small ferns, bushes, trees, and vines. A narrow pathway, overhung with leafy branches, led deeper into the jungle and quickly disappeared. At ground level, the lighting was soft and shady, filtered by the trees; above the boundary of the tinted glass, the sun shone brightly on the treetops. He could hear water running somewhere.

“Welcome to my tropical paradise.”

Her words brought his gaze back down to her. Dressed as she was, the green sweater matching the emerald of her eyes and blending with the background, her dark hair flowing around her shoulders, she could almost be a creature of the forest. Or the jungle, rather. He, however, felt distinctly out of place, practically on another planet.

“This is my playground. It’s for pure enjoyment and is not connected to either the farm operations or my research. When I come here, I can block out the rest of the world.” She grimaced. “When the so-called debate degenerated into chaos, I decided I’d better get out of there before I screamed like a banshee and made a fool of myself. It seemed to be the appropriate place to come for some peace.”

“I’m glad you did,” Marcus said. “Left, I mean. It gave me the excuse to do the same. What happened to everybody? They all seemed to go crazy.”

“I’m not surprised. I feared Clay would start something, if for no other reason than to uphold his reputation for family teasing. I warned Daddy, and he assured me he’d keep order. Hmph! Some order.”

Marcus shook his head. “Clay wasn’t the primary instigator. George holds the honor with his rap song. Putting him and your brother together was like throwing two firecrackers into the fire. For reasons I’ve never been able to fathom, George delights in ‘shaking me up’ from time to time. He claims it’s good for me.”

“Our rehearsal never had a chance, did it?”

He could only shake his head again. She sounded and looked so disappointed, his hands itched with the desire to take her in his arms to comfort. Or maybe simply to hold her. Hell, even when confused and unsettled by a ludicrous “debate” and a terrifying ride, his damned attraction to her pulled at him like she was a magnet and he a pile of iron filings. He refused to think it could be more than his libido reminding him of its existence. Certainly not what George had been talking about. He needed to change the subject.

To distract himself, he started looking around. Her house had been practically devoid of plants, he remembered. The building and its contents more than made up for that lack. “What are all these?”

“Do you have plants or a garden?”

“No. Except for tending to Samson, I’m too busy. I told my landscaper to put in native trees and the like to cut down on the upkeep. Never had an interest in gardening, either.”

“Oh. Then let me give you the nickel tour. The path runs through a series of S curves, to maximize the growing area and put us close to the plants. To my left is an allspice tree from Jamaica. Over to the right a cinnamon tree from Asia …” She walked him along the winding gravel walkway pointing out ferns, flowering bushes, trees, a stand of bamboo. The dogs disappeared into the foliage ahead.

Marcus was grateful, but a little surprised that she used common names in her explanation, not the long Latin ones he would expect of a botanical scientist. He had never heard of some of them, others he vaguely remembered seeing somewhere. All appeared to be growing with abandon. He could only marvel at the size of some of the elephant ears—at least, he thought that’s what they were, even if they were blue in color.

He was beginning to feel the vines reaching for him, when they emerged into a small clearing where the path widened. Light streamed down from above and highlighted brilliant reds, pinks, and blues in flowers and leaves. After the darkness of the green tunnel, the profusion of color and light was almost blinding. A cooling breeze made the humidity bearable and rustled the leaves. On the side wall rose a huge tree with large branches arching over the open space. The lower branches, almost within his reaching distance, had no tree leaves and teemed instead with foliage with stiff, shiny, spiky leaves.

“Is all the vegetation natural?” he asked. “That can’t be a real tree. Its trunk doesn’t extend through the wall.”

“No, I fudged some and copied what some zoos have done in artificial rainforests. The biggest trees are fake and serve as hiding places for wiring and plumbing or platforms for the vines and bromeliads. The epiphytes can grow practically anywhere since they don’t put down roots like other plants. If you look closely, you can see the braces holding up the long limbs.”

He studied the false branches overhead. They certainly appeared natural with the vines coiling around and draping off the horizontal. One of the vines had a funny color—sort of a mottled brown. He followed it with his eyes until he came to an end. What was that triangular shape? Were those eyes?

“Uh, I thought you said there was nothing harmful in here. What about that snake?” He pointed to it.

“Snake? Oh.”

He heard her chuckle, but didn’t take his eyes off whatever that was lurking above.

“That’s Sassy, the cybersnake,”—she emphasized the hiss of the S sounds—”my brother’s contribution to my garden. He’s named for an African tree bark that’s poisonous. ‘Can’t have an Eden without him,’ Clay said. He’s rubber.”

He took his gaze off the snake to look at her. She had that mischievous glint in her eyes and quirk to her lips again.

“He’s computerized, of course. Clay rigged him to move and even fall down on people. There’s a remote control to activate him.” She glanced at her watch. “Come this way.”

She crossed the clearing, and he followed her down the serpentine path through another twisty, leafy, even narrower, more thickly planted tunnel into a much bigger open area with more shrubbery, flowers, and trees on its edges and a lawn in its middle. They had reached what looked to be the rear of the building. In the right corner against the clear back wall rose a black stone formation about ten feet high. A gurgling waterfall splashed down its rugged sides to land in a pond with lilies and a background of tall skinny stalks topped with pompoms of green skinny leaves. At the other end of the pond close to a stand of bamboo, a stream vanished into the bushes.

Against the side to his left stood a wooden structure raised about a foot off the floor and covered by a roof made from palm fronds. A double-wide chaise lounge, a coffee table, and two lawn chairs sat in the middle, and what appeared to be a shed formed the solid back wall.

Marcus breathed easier. The jungle wasn’t devoid of civilization. In fact, the cabana might be a good place to sit and think. Despite the humidity, the space was not uncomfortable.

A loud booonnnnnggg suddenly rang through the building.

Marcus jumped as the sound reverberated off the walls and he felt it resonating in his chest. “What was that? An alarm?”

“A notification. Let’s get under cover.” She stepped up onto the cabana floor and sat in one of the chairs.

He took the chair next to her. Delilah jumped onto the platform and yodeled at Samson, but his hound was busy sniffing around the pond’s edge.

“What’s going to happen?” he asked, wondering if a floor show would erupt from the pond. Given her family, he’d better be prepared for the worst. “Samson, come here.”

The dog ignored him—until a sound like thunder boomed, and rain began to pour down. Samson yelped and made a beeline for the protection of the cabana.

“Delilah doesn’t like water, either,” Gloriana said with a smile while Samson shook himself dry.

Marcus frowned at her.

She must have thought he was angry because she said in an apologetic tone, “It really is a rainforest. I have some towels in the pump room behind us, if you want to dry him off.”

“No, he’ll be fine,” he answered as the rain increased in volume. He looked up. The palm frond roof did its job; not even a drop permeated the barrier.

Neither spoke—they would have to shout to be heard over the rain. She didn’t look at him, so, seated where he was to her right and slightly behind, he used the time to study the woman. She appeared to be checking out her jungle, focusing on points around the area, until she closed her eyes and gave a deep sigh. The inhalation caused her sweater to tighten across her chest, and the movement drew his gaze. He felt his body stir. Maybe it had not been such a good idea to come with her to her wet paradise.

After several minutes, the rain abruptly stopped, and silence surrounded them, punctuated only by the gentle sound of water, either dripping from the leaves and the cabana roof or gurgling down the rocks into the pond. She opened her eyes and looked at him—with an expression he couldn’t read, and the intensity of her gaze shook him to the core.

With an effort, he broke the eye contact and stood, walked over to the edge of the platform. He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “You have the rain on a timer, I presume?” It was an inane comment, but the best he could do at the moment.

“Yes. The water circulates in a closed system.” Her voice sounded breathless at first, then evened out as she talked. She explained the complicated drainage and nutrient system and finished with, “The arrangement is so efficient that we lose very little to evaporation.”

Marcus peered up at the barely visible piping high above him, then down to the waterfall, pond, and profusion of flowers and foliage. Her rainforest was both high-tech and primeval. He understood the mathematics of her system almost intuitively. At the same time, he felt distinctly out of place in such an environment, like he was truly in the middle of an ancient jungle.

“How long have you been working on it?” he asked, merely to keep the conversation going.

“Three years. I was hoping to spend more time here this summer, but with the debates …”

“Three years? That’s all? Some of these plants are enormous. Did you need a crane to lift them into the building?”

“Most were small enough for one or two people or a forklift to pick up when we put them in place.” She looked at him with a quizzical expression for a moment before her face cleared. “You don’t really know what my magic is or does, do you?”

“I assumed it was all about plant chemistry, manipulating DNA and the like to come up with new species variants and pharmaceutical compounds.”

“That’s only part of it. My real magic manifests itself in helping plants to grow. When whole specimens, not simply seeds, come to me from all over the world, they’re usually in distress from the handling. I use my magic to keep them alive and help them prosper.” She rose from the chair and walked past him down the steps over to one of the bushes. “Come here and I’ll show you.”

When he stood beside her, she pointed to a branch. “Here, take hold gently right below the leaf. Go ahead, it won’t bite. It’s a poinsettia.”

Relieved, he looked down at the branch in his hand. He knew that plant because he always brought Evelyn and George a big one for the holidays. The branch he held was almost all green leaves with only a few tiny red ones at the top. The true flowers, the yellow nubs in the center at the end, were more suggestions than actual fact.

“Watch,” she said.

He felt a humming, but couldn’t tell if it was in the air or coming from the plant. His fingertips tingled as though something under the skin of the branch was vibrating. Nothing else happened for a few seconds.

He shot a glance at her. She was concentrating on the leaves. He did the same. He was about to ask what to look for, when suddenly the leaves began to grow, especially those at the tip. Before his eyes, they grew at least an inch and turned a deep scarlet. The yellow flowers became round balls. The whole branch quivered—or was that his hand shaking?

“That’s all I’ll do for the moment,” Gloriana said. “I don’t want to stress the plant unduly.”

Marcus looked from the branch to her and back again. Most of the magic he’d ever come into close contact with had been intellectual—manipulating formulas, or designs, or numbers in the mind. Sure, all practitioners handled energy, and he’d been able to cast
lux
since he was a small child. He’d seen how Evelyn could calm people, but had no idea how she actually managed the feat. He knew some physicians could speed healing—somehow.

He’d never actually witnessed someone manipulate another living thing like that. It wasn’t telekinesis. It wasn’t light energy. He ran his fingers over the leaves. It certainly wasn’t an illusion. It was physical magic. He’d actually felt the power flowing, causing a change of recognizable proportions. He could almost believe he’d seen a secret of the universe revealed.